Tuesday, 28 August 2018

Stripe, Visa join $8 million Series A round in African payments startup Paystack

Paystack, a Nigeria-based startup providing payments tools to businesses in Africa, has raised $8 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Stripe, and includes Visa, follow-on funding from Tencent and Y Combinator, as well as angel investors Tom Stafford, Managing Partner at DST Global), Gbenga Oyebode, founding partner of Aluko & Oyebode and Board member of MTN Nigeria), and Dale Mathias, Co-founder, Innovation Partners Africa.

Within a little over two years, Paystack's all-African team has grown to process nearly 15% of all online payments in Africa's largest economy, powering tens of thousands of businesses of all sizes including telcos, airlines, and government agencies.

Paystack provides powerful APIs to help developers quickly build modern payments experiences online. With only a few lines of code, developers can create custom checkout experiences, build automated recurring billing systems for subscription products, instantly send bulk transfers to any bank account in Nigeria, verify the identity of customers through five different verification APIs, and much more.

Through the company’s sleek payments interface, customers can pay with local and international cards, or directly from their bank accounts. Paystack also supports localized payment channels, including mobile money, QR code, and USSD payments. Every payment is screened by sophisticated fraud-monitoring systems to protect merchants from chargebacks, and Paystack’s direct bank integrations ensure the highest transaction success rates.

Beyond payments, Paystack provides businesses with powerful growth tools in the form of a Dashboard that helps them closely monitor and act on every aspect of their business’ performance, from granular transaction error data, to detailed customer insights.

“As recently as 2015, it was really difficult for a developer or business owner in Nigeria to quickly start accepting online payments,” says Shola Akinlade, CEO and co-founder of Paystack. “We started Paystack because we believe that better payments tools are one of the most important things that African businesses need to unlock their explosive potential. We think of Paystack as an amplifier of the incredible work that African business owners are already doing. With better technology tools, African businesses can be better equipped to play a growing role in the global economy.”

“The Paystack founders are highly technical, fanatically customer oriented, and unrelentingly impatient,” says Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe. “We’re excited to back such people in one of the world’s fastest-growing regions.”

“Africa is central to Visa’s long-term growth strategy, especially when you consider how cash is still a primary payment option for millions on the continent,” says Otto Williams, Head for Strategic Partnerships, Fintechs and Ventures for Visa in Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA). “Our investment in Paystack aligns with the kind of investments we look for - those that will help extend our reach into the global commerce ecosystem as it changes and grows, and that will provide mutually beneficial business opportunities.”

Paystack will invest the new round of funding in scaling its engineering team, further deepening its payments infrastructure, and accelerating their expansion across the continent.

Akinlade adds: “As Paystack looks to expand rapidly across the continent, we’re thrilled to have the benefit of the deep experience of Stripe, Visa, and Tencent. Our ambition is to give African merchants the tools and services they need to go toe-to-toe with the best businesses in the world, and win.”

Paystack helps businesses in Africa get paid by anyone, anywhere in the world. Paystack processes over 15% of all online transactions in Nigeria, powering payments for tens of thousands of organizations. Businesses use Paystack to accept both online and offline payments through payment channels such as ATM cards, mobile money, USSD, QR code, and more. Businesses also rely on Paystack’s powerful APIs for everything from transfers (disbursements) to automated user verification.